Vestager: Facial recognition tech breaches EU data protection rules
The EU’s flagship data protection regime renders automatic identification through facial recognition technology illegal, Commission Vice-President for Digital Margrethe Vestager has said. Speaking to a group of reporters last Thursday (13 February), Vestager said that “as it stands right now, GDPR would say ‘don’t use it’, because you cannot get consent.” Article 6 of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation outlines the conditions under which personal data can be legally processed, one such requirement being that the data subject has given their explicit consent. Vestager added, however, that there are exemptions to the rule with regards to public security issues, in which cases facial recognition technologies should be allowed to automatically identify persons legally.
